Self-Immolation
by dancer4813
Summary: Self-Immolation - a sacrificing of the self, usually for another. Set immediately after 3x02, "Purpose in the Machine". -0- "But I was the only one who could help!" Daisy exclaimed. "I'm not saying you shouldn't have used your powers," Coulson reasoned. "I'm only saying that you need to understand your limits."


_"Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends." John 15:13_

* * *

"You did good, Tremors," Mack said, his arm supporting her from behind, the words only just heard above the sound of her own fast breathing and the unceasing ringing in her ears that throbbed off-tempo with her heartbeat and felt like it was swallowing her whole. "You did good."

His words were the last thing she heard before the pulses of vibrations rose up and consumed her, pulling her into darkness.

-0-

She woke up with a start, eyes flying open as she shouted, the vibrations pounding in her ears and the world around her shaking.

"Daisy! Daisy, calm down!" someone yelled, but she could only just hear them over the painful drumming in her head, and tears came to her eyes when she blinked and the bright light of what must have been the lab stung and burned.

" _Lights_ ," she growled desperately, trying to explain her predicament, even as her stomach twisted inside her and her head felt like it was being crushed.

Luckily someone managed to understand her and just a few moments later the lights were turned down to a dim glow, not that it helped much… True, her eyes didn't hurt as much, but the sides and back of her head still ached with the persistent thrumming, and her gut was roiling with nausea.

"Turn it off, please," she whimpered, trying to drown out the vibrations by putting her hands over her ears, "Turn it off."

There was mumbling but the noise didn't abate and her headache wasn't getting any better.

"Please, turn it off," she pleaded again, digging her fingers into her skull, wishing she could pry it open to relieve some of the tension. "It _hurts_."

Daisy felt tears leak down her cheeks and bit back a cry of pain as the pulsating rhythm grew in a crescendo, drowning out every other noise in the lab.

She held back the sounds for only a moment until it spiked unexpectedly, making her scream out. It _hurt_ and her head was aching and her nose felt like it was running – again? – and her temples felt like someone had driven sharpened stakes into them.

Then there were hands on her arms and Daisy cried out again, struggling against whoever was holding her down, her eyes still shut tightly.

"Daisy, please-" a voice shouted urgently before it was cut off by another sudden spike inside her skull and a sharp gasp of air from beside her.

"Just use the damn ICER!" a man's voice said, muffled beneath the other poundings.

Daisy felt a spike of pain on her leg, but didn't think she'd ever been so happy to feel the numbing of her veins as the dendrotoxin coursed through her system, pulling her into a painless darkness.

-0-

Bobbi, Hunter, Mack, and Coulson let out a sigh of relief as the ground beneath their feet stopped shaking and Daisy fell into an ICER-induced sleep.

"Thanks Mack," Bobbi said, pushing herself off the floor with one arm, pain shooting through her knee as she moved her leg. "I thought the sedative would be better as she already seemed to have a headache, and the dendrotoxin is only going to make that worse, but-"

"-but she threw you to the ground instead," Hunter finished, mouth twisting into a frown.

"Hunter!" Bobbi scolded, frowning at him. "She didn't mean to hurt me. You _know_ that."

"Doesn't mean she didn't do it."

Bobbi sighed, shaking her head, and moving to stand up.

"Easy love," Hunter said, rushing forward to help her up.

"I'm not an invalid," she grumbled, though she accepted his help.

He let go of her as soon as she stood and Bobbi rolled her eyes, extending her right knee carefully. It didn't seem any the worse for wear, but she knew she'd have to go easy on it for a couple of days. Mack was checking Daisy's vitals and Coulson was standing back, a carefully blank expression on his face as he stared at the young woman.

"Coulson?" Hunter asked, breaking the man's intense concentration. He looked up, then glanced around the dim room, lit only by the emergency lights. Lab equipment had fallen off the tables and a few beakers were shattered on the floor. There wasn't as much damage as there could have been, but there was enough. "Should we move her to one of Zephyr's containment pods?"

"That might be our best option, sir," Mack spoke up, stepping back from where Daisy was laying. "She doesn't seem to be any the worse for wear, save for a really bad headache, but at least a room on the Zephyr could contain her tremors if necessary."

"It is our best option," Coulson agreed, nodding and worrying the wrist of his fake hand with the fingers of his right. "You've done rudimentary medical training, yes Bobbi?"

"I have sir."

"Have Agent Cooper assist you in giving Sky- _Daisy_ a CT scan. If she ruptured a blood vessel or something of the sort getting her to a hospital is our top priority."

"But wouldn't the ICER's dendrotoxin affect the scans?" Mack asked, looking confused. "Don't those have something to do with iodine going through the body?"

"If we were doing an _MRI_ _scan_ it would be a problem, since dendrotoxins affect nerve signals sent throughout the body and MRIs measure the function of and activity in the brain," Bobbi explained. "But a _CT_ _scan_ uses radioactive iodine to examine the _bloodflow_ in the brain, not the electrical signals. We should be able to see if there is any abnormal bleeding."

"Oh yeah, right," Mack said, obviously not having understood much of what she said. Coulson just nodded at her shortly, and Hunter stared at her for a long moment.

"Yes?" she asked, turning to her ex-divorced-maybe-soon-to-be-husband.

"You are bloody sexy as hell when you talk science."

Mack and Bobbi both groaned. Of _course_ he would have something like that to say.

"Don't you have my wounds to avenge or something?" Bobbi snipped. He'd stayed behind at the Playground to prepare for going out to find Ward and HYDRA, and only remained there until they got back because of the news that they'd found Simmons.

"Ward has been waiting for months. Another day won't hurt," Hunter remarked, shrugging. "Besides, today's a day for celebration! Once you're finishing with Daisy's CT scan-"

" _And_ we've determined nothing serious is going on," Bobbi cut in. Typical Hunter, changing his mind once again. He'd been singing a different tune just the other day when he'd wanted nothing more than to leave and search for the man.

"Yeah, that," Hunter brushed off. "Once you've made sure she's as well as she can be, given the circumstances, we're having beers in the lounge."

"I'll keep that in mind," Bobbi said, rolling her eyes again, though fondly instead of with exasperation. His good mood was contagious.

"Let's put on a party!" Hunter exclaimed, turning around and ushering Mack and Coulson out of the lab. Bobbi, amused, watched them go, then paged Agent Cooper to the lab.

The sooner they could figure out what was wrong with her, the better.

-0-

Daisy worked her way back into consciousness gradually, her eyelids heavy and her thoughts muggy. Blinking, she saw the white honeycomb walls of the containment rooms on the Zephyr One and she felt her eyebrows draw together with confusion. When had she fallen asleep there?

There was a blurry shape to her right, and her fingers trailed toward it, though she couldn't quite reach.

"Who's that?" she asked instead, squinting through the relatively bright surroundings. "What happened?"

The shape moved suddenly, a startled noise coming from whoever it was who had fallen asleep by her bedside. Daisy guessed it was Coulson, even though she still couldn't really focus on much.

"Skye?"

Yep. It was Coulson.

"I'ss Daisy," she slurred, lips quirking up into a smile.

"Daisy, right. Sorry," he said, yawning. "How are you feeling?"

"Groggy," she replied, attempting to sit up. He stood up to help her, and with his assistance she managed to rest in a slightly more dignified position. As an added bonus, sitting up helped clear some of the blurriness from her eyes and she managed to actually focus on the man beside her. He was in the same clothes as he had been when they'd gotten Jemma back, though that felt like ages ago.

"How long have I been asleep?" she asked, rubbing her eyes.

"Only a few hours," Coulson answered, sitting back down. "But is your headache gone? It seemed to be causing you some, ah… distress."

Daisy remembered the roaring and pounding in her head and frowned. "That wasn't a dream? Wow, I must have been more out of it than I thought."

"You were pretty out of it," he agreed, a smile appearing on his lips. "Though you do seem to be feeling better."

"Yeah, no more killer migraines."

She paused, taking in the fact that she was in a _containment room._ "Did I quake the base again?"

"Not really, only one room, and that was only when Bobbi tried to sedate you."

"Did I hurt her? Anyone else?"

"Bobbi's fine," Coulson assured her, shaking his head. "And nobody else got caught by the shockwave. It must have been triggered like a natural defense, hence why we needed to use an ICER to put you out."

"But ICERs leave you with a headache when you wake up," Daisy pointed out, pulling her knees up toward her chest to rest her arms on. "Why don't I feel residual effects from that?"

"Bobbi gave you some painkillers, and some dexamethasone – I think that's what it's called – in the hopes that your migraine wouldn't come back after that," he said. "She and Agent Cooper gave you a CT scan to check for any sort of internal bleeding or stroke that could have caused the pain you were feeling, but it came back clear and it seems like a one-off event."

He forward, clasping his hands together and resting his forearms on his knees as he continued.

"Bobbi's suggestions were that it was simply caused by using your powers too much for too long a time, or that simple exposure to the Monolith in its portal state caused some sort of untraceable rupture. You _were_ feeling faint after the machine activated the portal after all."

Daisy nodded, taking in his words. "I have no idea," she said, examining her arms, noticing they were free of bruises unlike the first time she'd tried to use her powers. "But at least we know I can safely stop the vibrations once I get them going now," she offered, holding up her unbruised arms. "I'm not going to miss those bruises."

Coulson's gaze had darkened somewhat, and when her eyes met his it was to find a slightly disappointed look.

"What?" she asked, folding her arms back together, feeling defensive. "I know that look. What did I do? Besides help save Jemma, of course."

"You could have killed yourself," he said seriously, his voice dropping. "You fainted and blood was running from your nose after the Monolith finally was destroyed."

"But I-"

"Even after I warned you not to push yourself too hard," he continued, silencing her argument. It had been a while since she'd heard Coulson's disappointed voice, but it still hurt just as much, making her heart twist uncomfortably in her chest. "You said yourself that you couldn't hold it any more, then kept the portal open anyway. Who knows if the Monolith did something to you, or if something worse could have happened?"

"But I was the only one who could help!" she argued, feeling a fire beat back against the cool shame within her. "If I hadn't used my powers we would never have got Jemma back!"

"And I'm not saying you shouldn't have used your powers," he reasoned. "I'm only saying that you need to understand your limits. Don't push yourself to the breaking point, _please_."

Daisy sighed, frustrated, and leaned back against the wall again, hugging her arms to her chest. "I just wanted to help – I knew I could do it."

"You knew you could activate the portal, _not_ that you could sustain it long enough for Simmons to come back through."

His calm words, and the logic behind them, made the feeling of shame inside her rise again, and Daisy felt a heat flood her face. She knew if she had a chance to go back she would do the exact same thing again, but…

"Sorry," she spoke clearly, bowing her head. "I wasn't really thinking about the consequences, and then Fitz jumped in…"

She trailed off, tears stinging her eyes as her mind brought forth the terrifying possibility she hadn't allowed herself to consider – that Fitz could have been lost through the portal just as Jemma had. She remembered thinking he had been lost to them, along with any hope of getting them back when she saw the Monolith had crumbled to dust, only to find out they'd both made it back. Daisy sniffed and tried to subtly wipe the tears away with her sleeve.

"I completely understand," Coulson said, rising to walk forward and sit next to her on the bed, the mattress sinking a couple of inches with his weight. "And believe me, Fitz is getting a lecture from me as soon as he's cleared quarantine and steps away from Simmons for a moment. It was reckless and dangerous of him to jump into an unknown void, and the fact that he basically threw his life in your hands is not okay."

"I didn't mind-"

"But it nearly cost you _your_ life, and cost us any chance of getting Simmons back," he pointed out, his eyes locking hers in place as he talked. "Fitz has been spending too much time on his own, with no need to worry about anyone but himself. He needs to remember that he's a SHIELD agent, and that he has a duty to everyone else here; not just Simmons. And you need to remember that even though you're the leader of the Caterpillars, of the Inhumans, that everything is not your responsibility. That's my job."

Daisy chuckled, and nodded as she wiped away the last of the tears on her face. "I understand, Mr. Coulson Director Sir."

He laughed and stood, the mattress rising up again as his weight shifted off it.

"Glad we could chat, Daisy, and I'm happy you're feeling better. Now get some more rest. You had a long day."

"We all did, Phil," Daisy protested, even as she slithered back underneath the sheets and pulled the duvet up to her chin. "Tell Simmons 'hi' from me, yeah?"

"Bobbi said she would probably be out for a few more hours," Coulson said, "so you can tell her yourself when you make it up there. Until then though, take another nap."

"If only this was every day as a SHIELD agent," she quipped, smirking even as she yawned. "Perform miracle in the morning, then sleep for the rest of the day? I could get used to this."

"When would we do paperwork?"

"Fitz could make a robot to do it all for us. Maybe Tony Stark would help him out. You said he hates paperwork," she muttered, feeling her eyes grow heavy.

"The last robot Tony Stark made wasn't exactly friendly," Coulson reminded her, and she caught a glimpse of his grimace before her eyes slid shut.

"Whatever," Daisy mumbled, allowing her tired muscles to sink into the mattress below her. "Good night, Director."

"It's afternoon-" Coulson started, but he just sighed. "Good night, Daisy."

She didn't hear him leave the room, but Daisy fell asleep thinking how lucky she was to have a team that looked out for her. And she'd be damned if she didn't take care of them right back.

* * *

 **This came about from watching 3x02 and minorly freaking out because Daisy definitely looked like she was going to pass out/faint/seriously be injured from activating the Monolith. I mean, her nose was bleeding, her head was pounding with those vibrations... I was seriously worried for her. And yeah, I was super happy about Fitzsimmons being together again, but that happiness was dimmed somewhat by my worry for Daisy (that none of the rest of the team seemed to share, save Mack and Coulson.**

 **As with many TV shows we can only have so much happen during a 45-ish minute long episode, so heart-to-heart chats are usually thrown by the wayside. So this was a chance I took to develop that farther. And, the same as Daisy's chat, Fitz (as much as I love that he got Jemma back), *really* shouldn't have jumped into an unknown portal. Completely unsafe. And it was just sort of brushed off, glossed over...**

 **Also, writing Hunter is one of my favorite things. Especially when he and Bobbi are having a moment. Maybe it's just because he's so passionate about things, or something else, but he's really fun to write.**

 **And that Static Quake moment... Not sure if a kiss is a proper way to show affection after basically 6 months of limited contact, but either way I found it very sweet and heartbreaking!**

 **Hope you enjoyed! Please leave a comment if you've got something to say, or even just to say you enjoyed it! I love hearing from readers. :)**


End file.
